Facebook: Building a nice profile page

By markusmFacebook

The better title is: Building a nice Facebook profile page from your existing content with F8 applications. But that’s too long for a catchy title 🙂

Yesterday evening I logged into my Facebook account and stared at my Facebook profile page. It was pretty boring and I decided to tweak it. But the content should come from existing pages and services.

Use the Facebook F8 applications

First question was which services to use to pull nice content into my profile page. I can offer some valuable sources:

Remember: My aim is not to use Facebook all the time or to engage too much into all this networking. My very first aim is to create an attractive profile page! The rest may come later (or not).

Luckily I could find some working F8 applications for all my sources to pull that content nicely into my Facebook profile. The research was done on the Facebook applications page. Looking for ‘Flickr’, ‘RSS’, ‘LastFM’ and ‘StumbleUpon’ got me the Facebook F8 applications I needed.

The result can be seen here: Markus Merz on Facebook. I think it is pretty content rich, looks nice, promotes some of my existing content and is a good base for my future work on Facebook (if needed). If somebody asks for my Facebook address I can happily hand over that page as my Facebook business card and show off my web 2.0 competence. What do you think?

Additionally I did:

Strip down that mini-feed

I deleted all the mini feed events which I think are not useful for my visitors. Of course I also defined all applications not to be too verbose in the future.

Create a group on Facebook

And fill in some content mostly links to existing pages or services. Too bad that F8 applications can’t be used for groups (as far as I know): Hamburg St. Georg

What useful tips do you have for a Facebook profile page? Hints and examples welcome!

I.e.: I will add my p.com blog via RSS 🙂

16 thoughts on “Facebook: Building a nice profile page”

  1. I was wondering if I could add graphics or change the look of my facebook page? If so how do I do it? Is there any wallpaper or anything I can add? I am creating a business page and not sure how to make it different then a normal page? can anyone help me. please email me if so [email protected]

    thank you

  3. On my profile under the INFO section, there is information for the groups that I belong to. How do I get the pages that I am a fan of to show up. They were there at one time, but somehow got removed. So I guess what I am saying is that I need help with displaying groups and fan pages on my personal profile. Thank you !!

  6. Hey!!

    Please help me to know more about facebook and it’s utilities.

    Thanks in advance

    Binita

  7. Now I have a new very sportive looking friend and he should be able to see my profile 🙂

  8. I was thinking, that’s not too exciting…

    Looking forward to seeing the actual profile page.

  9. Update

    > Again, sorry for the inconvenience!

    There is no public profile page which is available to everybody. Just a pretty empty standard page.

    The best solution to see my FB profile really seems to be to make me a friend. You are only allowed to be in one region and to share a workspace FB asks for a working email.

    OK, I will make everybody a friend who asks for it. FB users who have already asked for it but got no answer: Please resend the request!

    Edit: Pls. add something like “Because of p.com…”. That will increase priority 🙂

  11. Sorry, I am still pretty new to the privacy settings and what happens there on Facebook.

    “Facebook is made up of many networks, each based around a workplace, region, high school or college.”

    My profile and the applications are open for all my networks and my friends. A wider approach is not available. My only network is ‘Germany’. So I think you have to join ‘Germany’ temporarily.

    Again, sorry for the inconvenience!

  13. I am not sure how to “effectively use sites like Facebook and mySpace”. Maybe the best is to ignore them

    MySpace seems to be a self referencing promotion platform for music related people. Yes really! I am working on a blog for a sound studio and MySpace is really a must have option for this guy.

    Facebook is a platform for connecting to people (like XING is in Germany). As I described it I use FB to cross connect networks and content more or less automatically.

  14. You know, I’ve really been wondering lately about how to effectively use sites like Facebook and mySpace for marketing. Any tips?

  15. And that exactly was the reason why I used already existing content which makes my profile look more serious if somebody stumbles over it. If I come across FB profiles only filled with colorful gadget applications I feel more like being on myspace and can’t take the person behind that profile as serious as he/she might be.

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